Petty Crashes, Mickey Breaks More Records, and the Brits Invade Indy in 1961

Change is the only constant in auto racing. All change is not created equal, nor are the end results predictable. Examples of unintended consequences fill the following pages. Some of 1961’s innovations naturally resulted from ongoing experimentation; a particular combination that caught on because it worked better than whatever worked last year. The biggest breakthroughs survive the longest.

Others are inspired or significantly influenced by outside interference to that evolutionary process. Whereas Jack Brabham’s back-motored Indy 500 entry had evolved naturally, over time, on European Grand Prix courses, Tommy Ivo was compelled to install two, then four, gas-burning V-8s because his local tracks and NHRA strips forbade alternative fuels. (NHRA later imposed a two-engine limit because of Ivo.) This was also the season that aircraft engines were fully banished from NHRA classes, resulting in a whole ‘nother category to regulate: exhibition vehicles. Indeed, the mass movement to complicated, expensive, breakage-prone, dual-engined gas dragsters—some spinning four slicks—was itself an unintended consequence of attempts to legislate away existing nitro and aircraft technology.

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Blown fuelers were still being built, of course, and starring in lucrative open competition and match races up to four times a week. You’d never know it, though, by reading event coverage in Petersen monthlies or viewing archive film shot by staff photographers. The few nitro-burners scattered among their thousands of archived 1961 negatives suggest that Robert E. Petersen’s employees recognized the futility and cost of wasting frames on forbidden fruit that had no chance whatsoever of seeing print. Luckily, “liquid horsepower” would nonetheless make a triumphant return to Top Eliminator and Pete’s powerful publications as the fuel ban dissolved and editorial director Wally Parks resigned to guide the growth of a sanctioning organization conceived and nurtured in HOT ROD’s offices.

Another ban-born surprise was Pontiac’s overnight emergence as GM’s racing brand and king of all stockers. Had spectators not been killed at Le Mans in late 1955, inspiring some countries to ban auto racing, Detroit wouldn’t have unanimously agreed to halt all sponsorship and promotion of auto racing as of July 1, 1957. Incoming PMD general manager Bunkie Knudsen seized the opportunity to rebrand Pontiac for power. Mickey Thompson and Smokey Yunick, while officially privateers, were prime beneficiaries of back-door parts, funding, complete race cars, and Pontiac support vehicles. While other automakers either fully or mostly continued honoring the AMA ban into the mid-’60s, big Catalinas consequently set the pace in Grand National and Super Stock performance. When Challenger I went 406 mph, everyone knew that all-American Poncho power punched through the barrier.

Although this year’s introductions of a bigger Chevy V-8 and, finally, a four-speed Ford gearbox—imagine Gas Ronda and Les Richey powershifting “three on the tree”!—helped get Motor City’s traditional rivals back in the game, Pontiac would rule the roost for one more season. Read all about it in the 1962 installment of Power Struggles.

You’ve heard that NHRA’s first western Winternationals was held in a parking lot, and this unpublished image has the painted spaces to prove it. Luckily for NHRA, no errant dragsters tested organic safety “barriers” that were probably imported from nearby stables. A local kid so little known that HRM and CC consistently misspelled his last name “McKewen” is breaking Pomona’s timing beam at 160-plus, yet Petersen photographer Al Paloczy perfectly timed his shutter’s release and speed. The unusually wide, undistorted image area and deep focus were enabled by a rare 6×9-format camera. (Explains TEN archivist Thomas Voehringer: “Format numbers are rough estimations of image area, in centimeters. A 6×9 uses the same 120-sized film as a standard, square-format camera, but more per frame: You get eight 6×9 negatives per roll, maximum, as opposed to 12. The wider-angle format offers 120 quality with a larger image area that was especially good for horizontal or vertical subject matter.”) The future Mongoose alternated between two fast slingshots at this all-gasoline meet. Pictured is Richard Rea’s Chrysler-powered Chassis Research K-88, which earned the A/Dragster trophy and a class record that lasted all season (167.28 mph). McEwen’s other ride, Gene Adams’s former Albertson Olds AA/D, went to the Top Eliminator final and nearly upset world-champ Jack Chrisman, who needed a stout 8.99 to overcome the youngster’s holeshot-aided 9.08. Fifty-five years later, both Rea and McEwen remain involved in the sport: Richard crews on a nitro-burning Nostalgia Funny Car, while Tom sells space in the last newsstand periodical devoted to drag racing, Drag Racer magazine.Though we prioritize previously unpublished outtakes, nothing in PPC’s archive screams “fun with hot rods!” quite like the shot that Editor Bob Greene picked for HRM’s May ’61 Winternationals coverage—without naming the happy handler, alas. Every other publication we checked likewise listed the A/Roadster winner as “Harrell Engines.” Not even Greg “The Great” Sharp had the answer, until he asked Roger Harrell, who explained that Willie Borsch and this happy guy, Don Reynolds, were still taking turns in the family T that evolved into the Winged Express. Don’s 10.55 at 139.31 held off the blown-Olds-powered Groves, Cirino & Durfee Model A in a trophy dash that must’ve been wonderfully noisy. (Roger wrote a 2009 book about his father and uncle: Harrell Engines & Racing Equipment is still available from Amazon.)Who says flathead racers have no use for overhead valves? The ironic ballast was spotted in the Pomona pits. If anybuddy recognizes the sanitary installation, please advise, so we can give credit where (over)due.In a major Motor Trend preview entitled “600-MPH Car” (Aug. ’61), Griff Borgeson detailed the design and early development of a thrust-powered tricycle destined to bring the unlimited land-speed record back to America, eventually and repeatedly (as we’ll see in coming issues). The Spirit of America’s low-buck owner-builder-driver was a 24-year-old fireman whose previous claim to fame was El Mirage’s fastest flathead coupe (149 mph). The fighter-style fuselage was designed by a model builder for Revell toys, Art Russell, who also made miniatures for wind-tunnel testing.The Chrisman family’s string of straight-line killers was broken, briefly, by the six-wheeled fueler that Art and Lloyd tested early this year. In the family biography, The Chrisman Legacy: Always Faster, author Tom Madigan shared Art’s regrets that the front slicks never hooked up, the rears never slipped, and one of the 454 Chrysler strokers never ran right. Hustler III struggled up to 178 mph before the brothers gave up—and cut it up.

HRM Tech Editor Ray Brock joined the shutterbug with a Polaroid “instant” camera outside Daytona International Speedway after Johnny Beauchamp’s ’61 Chevy (No. 73) and Lee Petty’s ’61 Plymouth (42) literally crashed out of the 100-mile qualifying race that effectively ended both careers. A spectator who was struck by debris and badly cut, A.B. Kelley, helped evacuate Petty, who spent four months hospitalized with life-threatening injuries before staging a short-lived comeback and retiring. Beauchamp walked away with a severe concussion, but never raced again. (Search YouTube for scary footage of both cars blasting through the guardrail.) Pontiacs set the pace for the second straight year here. The winning driver and mechanic, Marvin Panch and Jack Sullivan, joined Smokey Yunick’s factory team only two weeks earlier, after Panch expressed interest in reviving the idle, year-old Catalina that Fireball Roberts drove to Daytona’s single-lap record of 161.556 mph in 1960.

What became known as Competition Eliminator was created by independent tracks to accommodate stretched coupes, sedans, and roadsters deemed too radical for altered classes. Bill Coburn’s skinny Messerschmidt KR200 made the most of a general tolerance for any production body, whether domestic or foreign. Each 354 Chrysler fed its own Halibrand quick-change and pair of slicks. Bill later added fiberglass replicas of the postwar German three-wheeler to his Coburn Glaze line of waxes and polishes.No ninth-place finisher before or since has impacted Indianapolis as much as Aussie Jack Brabham did with a British-built, 1,100-pound, independently suspended, 167ci, converted Cooper Climax Grand Prix car on soft Dunlop rubber. Despite giving up nearly one-third the engine size and half the tire life to the other 32 starters, Indy’s first foreign entry since 1952 qualified at 145.144 mph, averaged a respectable 134.116 for 500 miles (behind A.J. Foyt’s winning 139.130), and foretold the end of the Indy roadster. As MT stringer Barney Navarro observed in his outstanding Aug. 1961 race report, “There was hardly a person in Gasoline Alley that didn’t think that Brabham could have driven to victory if he’d had the extra 87 cubic inches’ displacement of the Offies.”You longtime readers have seen this before (Mar. ’12 HRD). Sorry, but we can’t resist a rerun. Petersen Publishing Co. editors inexplicably excluded the shot from their respective CC, MT, and HRM Indy coverage, though the same ventilated Offy and garage—sans four jokers—made both the Sept. ’61 CC and Greg Sharp’s copy of the 1961 Indy 500 Yearbook (which traced the explosion to Lloyd Ruby’s connecting-rod failure in practice).While viewing, reviewing, and re-reviewing archive scans of all 60 B&W rolls exposed in Indiana this May, one frame of Rickman’s 120 film grabbed us every time. Limited to just 12 negs per roll, Eric’s aversion to wasting frames and risk running out at a crucial time was legendary. We had to wonder why “One-Shot Rick” made this exception for a stock, strange ’51 Chevy panel outside the speedway gate. As usual, Jim Miller of the American Hot Rod Foundation had the answer, directing us to JustaCarGuy.blogspot.com’s tribute to Larry Bisceglia. The California mechanic arrived from Long Beach, California, in time to be first in line—for 36 successive events, from 1950 until he became too ill to make the drive in 1986. Mario Andretti started a donation fund that financed an airplane ride to the 1987 race, Larry’s last. He died the next year, at 90.Revolutionary changes weren’t restricted to the Brickyard and dragstrips. Exciting, sideways shakedown runs by Bob and Bill Summers’s front-wheel-drive creation bumped the C/Streamliner record to 262.231 mph, average, following a frantic dash home to SoCal and back with a replacement block. Bob’s single leg of 302.317 with just 302 cubic inches was barely bettered by Art Arfons’s Allison-powered 313.780, top time of Speed Week. Originally designed as a three-wheeler, the Pollywog gained the fourth required for classification as a car.

This wasn’t one of Louis Unser’s record nine winning years at Pikes Peak, but he drove right into our favorite scenery shot. We later recognized “Uncle Louie” and the Conze Special in another previously unseen, posed image. Greg Sharp and Tom Jobe identified the other guy as seldom-photographed Vince Conze. Other owners ran the USAC dirt-champ cars for which this division’s rules were written, but Vince designed his chassis specifically for the annual “Race to the Clouds.” Greg Sharp added that the late fabricator was L.A.’s major hoarder of Offy/Meyer-Drake engines and parts. HRM’s multitalented Ray Brock singlehandedly covered the hillclimb for multiple Petersen magazines and shot both classic photos. Unser, 66 here, last ran the race—his 37th—at age 71.

Had it not been for the fuel ban, Tommy Ivo’s best-known race car would’ve never been built by Kent Fuller. Despite its banishment from NHRA competition even before July’s San Fernando debut, the “Four-Motor Car” went on to become drag racing’s longest-running exhibition act—and possibly the sport’s biggest breadwinner ever—as both a dragster and Funny Car, survive several owners, and be restored to its Buick station-wagon configuration. (See HRD’s Sept. ’12 cover story.) TV himself is shown hamming for female ‘Fernando fans, but a young helper handled the tire smoking. Don Prudhomme recalled earning 25 bucks per appearance.Would you believe Craig Breedlove, go-kart pilot? A whopping 16 cubic inches of single-cylinder Standun produced an impressive pass of 93.84 mph, but no I/Streamliner record.The West’s toughest two gas-class cars combined the driving skill of KS Pittman (right) with the Olds expertise of John Edwards. The partners’ own C/Gas Supercharged Willys, pictured at Indy, went undefeated in both of NHRA’s national events. At Pomona’s season open, Pittman doubled up in B/GS with the new Stone & Woods (pre-Cook) Willys and reset both ends of each class records(11.22/126.93 in C; 11.11/127.04 in B).HRM’s Nov. ’61 Nationals coverage revealed that after Pete Robinson (far lane) defeated McEwen & Adams for Sunday’s AA/Dragster trophy, he uncovered serious damage to his big (352ci) small-block and decided to sit out Labor Day’s Top Eliminator program—until “well-wishers” convinced the young engineer to scrounge replacement parts and work through the night. Sneaky Pete rewarded his army of new fans by easily overpowering fellow “hot”-class winners including second-round challenger Hill Alcala (foreground) in Dean Moon’s 301ci Chevy A/D. Robinson set and reset low e.t. all weekend, yet NHRA faulted wheelstands for a series of unprecedented, unannounced qualifying runs as quick as 8.46 (also for the 8.42 turned by Tom McEwen during eliminations). At the event’s conclusion, officials somehow calculated an “official” low e.t. of 8.58 for Robinson, and tossed out McEwen’s time.

Mickey’s Machinery

Mickey Thompson went twin-Pontiac crazy on land and sea, too. HRM’s Eric Rickman followed the Charg-Her project from bare hull to nearby Long Beach harbor and shot a full feature, but the photos never appeared.Ever eager for publicity and business opportunities, Mickey dragged what remained of his Cad-powered Kurtis road racer (note droopy headlight) out of his and Judy’s home garage to try Get a Grip, a bottled traction compound applied directly to tires. A short, timed course was set up midweek at Lions Drag Strip—which the busy Thompsons built in 1955 and continued operating on weekends—to compare acceleration and braking. (HOT ROD Club Platinum members can click into the July ’61 issue to read “Liquid Traction.”)Team Thompson entered five dragsters and twin Super Stockers into the inaugural West Coast Winternationals (one year after the first and last NASCAR-NHRA Winter Nationals in Florida). As far as we can determine, Mickey personally drove all five slingshots—including the twice-motored Kilomonster and a car sporting dual 6-71 blowers outboard of a single, all-aluminum Pontiac V-8—plus one Super Stocker. The sister Catalina stuck with its regular pilot, M/T staffer Hayden Proffitt.Pontiac Motor Division was pushing performance, and Mickey obliged by stuffing modified Tempest engines into three Dragmaster frames for the Winternationals. One of two unblown entries won X/Dragster, NHRA’s traditional ‘banger class, and destroyed both ends of the national record (11.27/125.96) before scoring a Middle Eliminator win that one reporter ranked as the meet’s biggest upset.Imagine the custom work necessary to hang a 4-71 GMC huffer onto a slant four. Combining the lightest Dragmaster chassis ever made with half the weight of a V-8 produced an 1,180-pounder that NHRA placed in B/Dragster, a super-competitive class of small V-8s with blowers and bigger V-8s without. (See Apr. ’61 HRM: “Half a Pontiac for the Quarter Mile Drag.)The most-frustrating, least-successful project of Thompson’s Pontiac era was the dual-engined, 4WD Kilomonster designed to break standing-start kilometer and mile world records that he already owned (at 251 kilos and 283 mph). In-house mechanical wizard Fritz Voigt was stymied by endless driveline failures in a 4WD car that carried 2,940 pounds, including the driver’s 210.This frame turned up on a roll that Rickman exposed in late May and labeled “Indianapolis 500.” The background looks more like brand-new Indianapolis Raceway Park, which hosted a tuneup meet around this time for the relocated NHRA Nationals. Another roll shows Jack Brabham in the seat of one of Mickey’s dragsters, wearing street clothes. The reigning Formula 1 world champ flew back and forth between Europe and Indiana on Memorial Day weekend to compete in both the Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500.Yes, our white knight somehow found time to crew on Chuck Chenowth’s Indy car, one of two destroked (255ci) Chevy entries. Mike McGill hit 142 mph in practice and figured to make the show until oil leaked onto a rear tire in practice, spinning him out. Clearly bitten by the Brickyard bug, Thompson was destined to become a major player here—for better and worse, as we’ll see in upcoming installments of this series.July 9th found Mickey back at the site of 1960’s successful FIA record runs. General Curtis LeMay, the war hero, Air Force chief of staff, racing fan, and patriotic supporter of Thompson’s quest to bring international records home to America, shut down March AFB’s runway long enough for four cars to make 18 total runs and set 14 world and national records ranging from 81.497 to 138.926 mph. Those times seemed slow to us, too, until we realized that speeds were averaged over a full kilometer or mile; e.g., the Super Stock Catalina’s new 95.571 American stock-car record required 160-plus at the mile marker. (See Sept. ’61 HRM: “King of the Kilo.”)

It was said at the time that Pontiac engineers “sawed a 389 in half” to hatch the new Tempest’s 195ci production engine—which Thompson literally sawed in half, again, to fit an International Class F limit of 1,500cc. The miniature Roots blower is GMC’s 2-71 model. HRM reported 275 peak horsepower and extremely violent vibrations on Mickey’s dyno. The 90ci twin produced four world and national records in this unstreamlined Dragmaster chassis, averaging 91.369 and 106.780 over a full kilometer and mile, respectively. (See Sept. ’61 HRM: “Torrid Two-Banger.”)The three-time-defending speed king sat out this Speed Week, but ensured Pontiac some press attention by replacing the Ford six in Bill Burke’s 205.94-mph-record-holding ’liner with various Tempest combinations, burning nitro. A surprising one-way speed of 232.22 mph set top time for D/Streamliners before one of Mickey’s big, blown ’bangers blew and spewed hot fluid under the canopy. Burke, Motor Trend’s advertising manger, suffered burns that prematurely ended the experiment.Mickey’s slight holeshot wasn’t enough to stop Al Eckstrand’s charge to apparent victories in the Super Stock class, then Top Stock Eliminator. Both were vacated by NHRA, however, after the Ramchargers club’s Dodge engine was ruled illegal in teardown. Meanwhile, M/T teammate Hayden Proffitt, the meet’s quickest and fastest stocker driver, trophied easily in Optional Super Stock at 12.55/110.29 (over Dave Strickler) before missing a shift in Top Stock, a new category presenting the 50 fastest entries.Here we are in December, yet the tireless racer is still competing—indoors, as a promoter. The centerpiece of the second annual Mickey Thompson Auto and Boat Speed Show in L.A.’s Shrine Exposition Hall was the world’s fastest car, Challenger I (406.6 mph).